Persephone Jackson: Book 1
by MidnightLightenStars1321
Summary: Fem Percy! With a few twists, Annabeth is now a boy named Cory Chase and Grover is Persephone's best friend.
1. Chapter 1

Fem Percy Jackson

Persephone Jackson; best friend is Grover, befriends and falls in love with Cory Chase a boy her age who is the son of Athena, Clarisse is an enemy along with the Ares cabin, Chiron is like a long lost grandfather, and Tyson is still her little brother, and Thailia is protective of Persephone.

I own nothing except Cory Chase.

Book 1: The Lightning Thief

Look I didn't want to be a half-blood. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside- stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before _they_ sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Persephone Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a troubled kid?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and out class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that…well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Grover tried to calm me down, hence _tried_. "It's okay, I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's un-human lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. "You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele_, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was the devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math wordbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you _shut up?"_

It came out louder than I had meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Miss. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it.

"That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because…"

"Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself.

"And…he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hide baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy mumbled to a so called friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Miss Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss. Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about the question and shrugged, a strand of wavy black hair fell in my face and I brushed it back. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Miss Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely in the Titan's stomach, what a rotten childhood. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Miss Jackson."

I knew what was coming.

I told Grover to keep going.

Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Persephone Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I never made above a C- in my life. No- he didn't expect me to be as _good_; he expected me to be _better_. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch, which was only a sandwich, apple, and a juice box.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York City had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from _that_ school- the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."

Grove didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going to Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A read umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

I was about to unwrap my peanut butter-and-banana sandwich when Nancy appeared in front of me with her ugly friends- I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists- and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops" She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I guess I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I didn't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Persephone pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"

"-the water-"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned to me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, Honey-"

"I know" I grumble. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grove yelped. "It was me. _I_ pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But-"

"You-_will_-stay-here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, bro," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "_Now."_

Nancy smirked. I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am." I squeaked at 'ma'am.'

Thunder shook the building. "We are not fools, Persephone Jackson," Mrs. Dodds snarled "it was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on _Tom Sawyer_ from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" She demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't…"

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery, wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat winds and claws and had a mouth fully of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

I let out a blood curling scream.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Persephone!" he shouted, and tossed the pent through the aur.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear, my hair blew all over my face wildly. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword- Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so band I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. _Hisss!_

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling madly. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside. It had started to pour.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends.

When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your sorry butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our _teacher_. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grove where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, bro," I told him chuckling nervously. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Miss Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "Where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Persephone, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"

"I honestly don't know anymore" I murmured and thanked him and walked back to Grover.


	2. Chapter 2: Socks of Death

Chapter 2: Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle.

For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr- a perky blonde hooker whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on out bus at the end of the field trip- had been out pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was a psycho.

It got so I almost believed them- Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Something was going on. Something _had_ happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feelings cranky and irritated most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when out English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick anyway.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet…there were few things I'd miss at Yancy, the view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grove, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I was worried how he would survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class, too- Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ across my dorm room causing some of the other girls to look at me strangely.

The words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polyduesces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my blue tank top.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's series expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. _I will accept only the best from you, Persephone Jackson. _Chills ran down my back and I took a deep breath and picked up the mythology book and studied the cover.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voice inside. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "...worried about Persephone, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"…alone this summer," Grover was saying "I mean, a Kindly One in the _school!_ Now that we know for sure, and _they _know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing her." Mr. Brunner said. "We need the girl to mature more."

I raised an eyebrow and I thought, 'I'm completely mature unlike Nancy!'

"But she may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"

"-will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let her enjoy her ignorance while she still can."

"Sir, she _saw _her…."

"Her imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."

"Sir, I…I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover" Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Persephone alive until next fall-"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow _clop-clop-clop_, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the last winter solstice.

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to dorm" Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."  
Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Angela and Marissa were on a bed painting each other's nails and were listening to Brittany Spears 'Oops I did it Again'. I rolled my eyes and slid under the covers and pulled the pillow over my head and screamed into the mattress.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. But one thing was clear: Grove and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Persephone," he said, "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and mad sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean…" Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung with tears that were about to spill.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said trembling, trying to hold in the tears and not look weak in front of the man I looked up to.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to sat…you're not normal, Persephone. That's nothing to be-"

"Thanks" I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"Persephone-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other girls were giggling and joking around, talking about their rich vacation plans. One of them was Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or babysitting little ankle-biters- I mean kids…or even selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the girls said.

"That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it, I was about to pull my hair out.

I said, "Looking for the Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"

I reluctantly confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. I gave him my genuine puppy dog eyes so he would forgive me, he could never turn them down.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh…not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. "Look, Persephone…I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"

"Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…"

"Grover!" he froze and looked at me.

"You're a really, really bad liar." I giggled at his expression.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business car. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um…summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or…or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?" I winced. It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Perse, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."

My mouth dropped and I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And he was acting like he was the one who defended _me._ And I'm a girl!

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on the sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts, and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was they seemed to be looking right at me. I felt a chill go down my spine.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching and that was never a good sign.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there!"

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for- Sasquatch or Godzilla…or even my mothers' husband Gabe.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Persephone, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them? They're not like-like Mrs. Dodds are they?

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw." He demanded.

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?" I said getting panicked.

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover- that snipping of the yawn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.


	3. Chapter 3 Grover Lost His Pants

Chapter 3: Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know, it was ride. But Grover was freaking me out majorly, looking at me like I was a dead woman, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver quickly.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never come back. What a jerk.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Psh, yeah right. Not Dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd job took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got man. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano and man was he ugly. He _was_ nice the first thirty-seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like melody garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along…well, when I came home was a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom" I demanded, giving him my famous glare.

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

I growled.

That was it. No_ welcome back_. _Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_

Gabe had put on more weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald dry scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

In his dreams, maybe.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in the Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and the beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "secret".

Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out, even if I was a girl.

"Get your own damn money," I snapped. He raised a greasy eyebrow.

"Don't talk to your father like that missy, now give me some cash our you'll be punished the hard way." He threatened and stood up.

"Come on, Gabe, the kid just got home." One of his ugly drunk friends said.

Gabe grunted. "Don't tell me what to do in my own damn house." His friend backed off.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, she ought to carry her own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy.

"Come on, Gabe, let's just play, leave the kid alone."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated harshly.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. I fake gagged and chucked him the money just to get out of the room, but Gabe grabbed my wrist.

"Your report card came, smart ass!" he shouted. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

I ripped my wrist away and ran to my room, which really wasn't a room anymore, it was more like Gabe's _study_. And I slammed the door louder than necessary.

He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff under the bed and in random places in the room, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty 'cologne' and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home. Yeah right, more like Home of hell and drunkies.

Gabe's smell was almost worst than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic- how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. Oops.

A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then I heard my mom's voice "Persephone?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, Persephone." She hugged me tight and ran her fingers through my long curly black hair. "You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on American uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd bought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she braided my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little girl doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really, glad to see her.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. This guy peeved me off so bad.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. "I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said; Nancy made it sound worse than it really was. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad from what I was about to get myself into.

Until that trip to the museum…

"What?" My mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying, I never really did like it. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," She said and a sort of twinkle sparkled in her crystal blue eyes.

"We're going to the beach."

My sea green eyes widened. "Montauk?" I asked with aw etched in my soft, bell like voice.

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?" I felt excitement building up in my chest.

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money. Gee I wonder maybe it's because he bought cigars and beer every chance he got?

Gabe's lumpy face appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch his, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get the heck out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip…it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip…And maybe if the brat apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your oh so incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed smaller. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect the sarcasm in my statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided and went back to his dumb game.

"Thank you, dear," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about…whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes- the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her warm smile returned, and I figured I must have mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip to pig out on and get even fatter.

An hour later we were ready to leave. Thank the lord!

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro-for a whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, wise girl," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve for crying out loud! But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano- was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. Who would be? She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire-well she did; I'm not trusted with it after what happened in first grade.

We roasted marshmallows (not hot dogs, I'm a vegetarian). Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Persephone," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Persephone. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic hyperactive petit girl with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean…when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Perse. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But…he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact I seemed to remember…something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me…

I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guys to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her; giving my puppy dog eyes. "To another boarding school?"

She frowned and pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think…I think we'll have to go something,"

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Persephone, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that It was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Persephone. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During the third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad –brimmed hat, the man only had one eyes, right in the middle of his head.

Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidently put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just…I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," She said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born-talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Persephone," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But it's only a summer camp…"

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _No!_

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, I head a distant bellow, and angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her blue nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of the pouring rain. But he wasn't…he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Persephone," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"_O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" _ he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you _tell _her?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be…where his legs should be…

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she never used before: "_Persephone._ Tell me _now!"_

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse and tossed me my white long sleeve that had a hood attached and jeans and I pulled them on behind the bed and she said, "Get to the car. Both of you. _Go!"_

Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet.

There were cloven hooves.


	4. Chapter 4: Bull Fighting and a Cute Boy

Chapter 4: My Mother Teaches Me Bull Fighting

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. Bu, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo-lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could say was, "So, you and my mom…know each other?"

Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us, "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching me? Yeah, that's not creepy at all."

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I _am_ your friend."

"Um….what _are_ you exactly?

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter! From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "_Blaa-ha-ha!_"

I'd hear him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What!" I shrieked, my eyes going wide.

"I'm a _goat _from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"_Blaa-ha-ha!_ There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like…Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a _myth, _Perse? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you _admit _there was a Mrs. Dodds!" I said, feeling satisfied I wasn't crazy.

"Of course."

"Then why-"

"The less you know, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Persephone," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?" I shouted over the crack of thunder.

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

My mouth fell open and I felt my eyes bulge. "What!" I shrieked.

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you driver faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My mom made a hard left.

We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go." I retorted and crossed my arms.

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies." Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the face they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to…when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you'."

"No I didn't. I said 'someone'."

"You meant 'you'. As in _me."_

"I meant _you, _like 'someone'. Not you, _you."_

"Children!" my mom said.

"She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-adark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that!" I asked, fear starting to build up inside my chest making it hard to breathe.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where_ there_ was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb delayed shock.

She really _hadn't _been human.

She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner…and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!_, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless and screaming, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat, wiping blood off my forehead and said, "Ow."

"Persephone!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay…just a little blood."

I tried to shake off the daze, but it felt like I had needles being poked in my skin. I knew I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. The was the only explanation. We'd been blasted off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!" I screamed, feeling tears well up in my eyes.

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're still my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Persephone," my mother said sternly, "We have to…" her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through mud spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His told half was bulky and fuzzy. Dang this guy needed to shave, I thought.

His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Persephone," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car. _Now._"

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out of the passenger's side!" my mother told me.

"Persephone-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mommy, you're coming too." I whimpered when a flash of lightning barely missed the Camaro.

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You _are_ coming with me. Held me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't _be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be a head…was his head. And the points that looked like horns.

Oh my god.

"He doesn't want _us_," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But…"

"We don't have time, Persephone. Go. Please."

I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you-"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous-black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain and blood out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min-"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible, he goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough" She said.

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

_Not a scratch_, I remembered Gabe saying.

I smirked, oops.

"Persephone," my mom said.

"When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way-directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish. Keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you?"

"But-"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hell was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any light. Geez, he needed to lay off the enchiladas.

The bull-man closed in.

Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted like me, but she shouldered Grover.

"Go, Persephone! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was out only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my flat chest (A/N: she hasn't developed them yet haha…awkward.)

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moments, I jumped to the side.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it. We needed a miracle.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Persephone!" she told me. "I can't can any farther. Run!"

But I stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.

"No!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and clenched my fists.

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The bull-man bore down on Grove, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I screamed and waved my hands in the air to get the bull-man's attention. Nothing worked. I found a large rock a few feet away and picked it up, I chucked it as hard as I could and it hit the bull-man in the middle of his forehead. See how that feels!

He looked straight at me, his eyes full of rage. "Raaaarrrrr!" The monster shook his meaty fists.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my hands in the air in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my thin arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes, not to mention blood from my cut, it was gushing blood now. The smell of rotten meat and sweat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like a high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The Minotaur tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-_snap!_

Who knew such a small person could hold that much strength?

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the gross. My head smacked against a rock-probably the one I threw. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a steak knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I barely managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go. No matter what.

The last thing I remember was collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a handsome boy, his sandy blonde hair just past his ears, framing his tan face. The both looked at me, and the boy said, "She's the one. She must be."

"Silence, Cory," the man said. "She's still conscious. Bring her inside."


End file.
